The present invention relates to the loading and unloading of aircraft, for example loading freight onto, and unloading freight from, the cargo hold of an aircraft.
Aircraft are typically able to carry freight in a cargo hold. Items of freight may include containerised items of cargo, for example in the form of containers, and/or may include pallets on which one or more objects are arranged. While there exist common types of container and pallet types for certain aircraft hold dimensions, such containers and pallets typically have a shape and size that depends on the available space in the aircraft cargo hold. They therefore tend to have a size and shape that depends on the model of aircraft with which they are used. For example, the containers used for a given aircraft are of the same dimensions and typically have a shape and size that makes good use of the internal space available within the cargo hold. Pallets or containers may therefore have a width just less than the internal width available in the cargo hold, there being room for one pallet/container across the width of the aircraft fuselage. In larger aircraft, the containers/pallets may be designed to sit two abreast along the length of the cargo hold. For narrow bodied aircraft it is common for the standard items of cargo to be designed to be loaded into the cargo hold with one pallet/container extending across substantially the entire width of the fuselage interior. Items of cargo, such as pallets and containers, typically have a width of less than three and a half meters, but greater than one and a half meters. The internal volume provided by each container may be between 3 and 5 cubic meters. The mass of a pallet or a container when loaded may be of the order of 1 to 2 tonnes or greater, and is certainly typically greater than 100 Kg. The use of such pallets/containers facilitates efficient loading and unloading of aircraft. Cargo holds may be equipped to carry such items of cargo.
The cargo hold of an aircraft is typically accessible via one or more cargo doors. In certain aircraft, for example smaller single-aisle commercial passenger aircraft, one of the cargo doors may, because of design constraints for example, be positioned at a location near to the aircraft's engine, the wing fairing, the horizontal tail-plane, or other aircraft structure that might prevent a conventional pallet/container loader from loading pallets/containers into one or all of the cargo holds. Usually, there will be another cargo door providing access to the bulk cargo hold. Such aircraft however can suffer from access problems, in that standard pallet/container loaders are unable to load pallets/containers into one or all of the cargo holds via all doors. This can result in only one cargo door being available for loading pallets/containers while the other door is used to load smaller items of cargo into the bulk cargo hold with smaller ground handling equipment. These limitations in the efficient use of all cargo doors may result in lengthened turnaround times and therefore direct increased cost to the airline.
The present invention seeks to mitigate the above-mentioned problems. Alternatively or additionally, the present invention seeks to improve the efficacy of loading and unloading of aircraft with freight containerised in pallets/containers. Alternatively or additionally, the present invention seeks to improve the loading and unloading of aircraft which have limited or restricted ground-handling-vehicle accessibility, which may result from the limited length of the aircraft or from the arrangement of cargo doors relative to potential obstructions.